DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

[Deleted User]

Puzzcat wrote: »

:T:T:T Well done cbc, that light at the end of the tunnel must be shining brighter every month...

Love Puzz. x

Thanks very much, Puzz:).

Yes, I think I can just about see a faint glimmer now. It would have been even brighter had I not had to take 4 months of token payments earlier this year. It really went against the grain as I'm a pay-it-off-as-soon-as-possible-whatever kind of girl:o. But I feel so much better for taking a small step back and feel reinvigorated to crack on with the second half now:j

I'd also like to thank you on behalf of all the posters who come on here with worries about their DMPs. You always answer with such encouragement and kindness and always seem to come up with really useful advice:T. I know it's often a case of 'been there done that' but I notice that you often suggest ways forward even if it's something you haven't experienced directly yourself. I've learned such a lot from you, often by reading your replies to others and taking the advice on board.

Incidentally, your DD will have graduated a few months before my DMP ends. That timeframe probably seems like forever to her but to me it's reasonably close;)

snowbean

Hi guys, great to see everyone doing so well.
I have another quick question please... 2 of the debts on our dmp are in my husbands name, and were defaulted back when we started the dmp 2-3 years ago now. However, I was under the impression that they had both stopped adding interest, but I now think that one of them is still adding interest. I'm going to get him to write to them to ask the interest to stop. Is there a particular template letter to use for this? Or just to say that given that we're on a dmp and the debt has been defaulted, it's unfair that they're still adding interest which will have been preventing the debt from being reduced? Can he ask them to remove the interest backdated to when the debt was defaulted?! Thanks for any advice

pinkspideruk

Hi im new to this section of mse and not sure if im posting in the right place so if its the wrong place sorry!

I started my dmp in 2013. I have never missed s payment and i am due to be debt free in around 10 months now

However I have had a string of bad luck with my car and since Oct last year have paid out around £1000 on repairs which is pretty much all the savings I had gone. It now needs a new exhaust which will cost anything from £150 up plus theres an issue with the timing which I wont know the cost if until its checked out. My problem is I literally do not have anything in savings to pay for this. I need my car for work so not getting the repairs done is not an option and the garage told me the longer i leave it the more costly its likely to be.

My question is if I contct SC am I able to miss a payment ormake a couple of reduced payments to cover the cost of getting my car sorted?

I only have 3 creditors left with money owing and the SC payments are above the minimum payments for 2 of them (argos and capital one) but i think the 3rd barclayscard is a apecific agreed amount due to the dmp.

I could save to get the repairs done but it would take me around 4 months during which the damage might get worse.

Advice gratefully received thanks

[Deleted User]

First of all, pinkspideruk, don't worry:). Easy for me to say as I panicked like crazy when I urgently needed money for repairs/replacements and didn't have a bean to my name earlier this year:o.

Just phone Stepchange, as I did, and explain what's happened. They will be able to help you really quickly and probably, as they did with me, suggest you making token payments for a few months. You've been paying regularly for a long time and creditors invariably accept such an arrangement. In my case it was £5 per month to each of my 8 creditors. A total of £40 was a heck of a lot less than the £732 I normally paid:j. It also gave me enough leeway to start a small emergency fund with the surplus I'd saved after getting all the repairs/replacements finished:j.

They'll sort it all out for you, you don't need to contact your creditors yourself. It will extend your debt-free date a bit but only by a few months. I'm now back to paying my regular payments and only one of my creditors even wrote to me in the interim.

Please let us know how you get on. Good Luck:beer:

Spoonhead88

I had kind of strange day today. Like most days I logged into my online banking for the accounts that are in my DMP to see the lack of movement. To my shock, one of the accounts was reading a 0 balance. I called up the bank they told me they had closed the account and defaulted it. I still owe the money of course but for a brief silly moment i thought some of my debt was gone.

System

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi Ramble,

Sorry I have forgotten if you were with sc and now self managing hence writing letters to creditors. My loan was front loaded with interest so when I went into my dmp it just remained the same balance as the interest had been included all along. Not sure if your loans are the same? Have you had any statements from them so you can check? And it could be worth giving them a call for an up to date balance and be brave and discuss your current situation?? I found the creditors didn't all read the letters I sent so ended up speaking to at least 4 of them, all were fine and accepted what I offered.
Puzz.x

Hi Puzzcat, thanks for responding.
I've gone self managed. I had a statement through the other day but that's it - and now you say that I think your right, the amount I have to pay in total includes all of the interest, so probably interest is not an issue, but I guess could still apply late payment charges. I think I will give them a call as I'd like to have everything officially sorted so I can just get on with it all.
It's funny the credit cards have been so easy to deal with, and this, the smallest amount owing is proving trickier!
Rubbish customer service though!
Thanks Ramble x

zenshi

How crazy is this!?

I owe 400 and offered to 250 to settle. Just got off phone with DCA dealing with debt. He spoke to his manager and came back and said...... system cannot calculate offers on less than 500 balances. If I owed more (even just over 500, he said) then my offer would most likely have been accepted

How bloody frustrating! On the upshot, they're more than happy to get £5 per month for the next 6 years

Will never understand the logic

ETA just had even more crazy thought....... I'm paying £5 per month, my bank account (same bank, I know it's risky) are paying me £5 per month bonus.....effectively paying their own debt

sourcrates

zenshi wrote: »

How crazy is this!?

I owe 400 and offered to 250 to settle. Just got off phone with DCA dealing with debt. He spoke to his manager and came back and said...... system cannot calculate offers on less than 500 balances. If I owed more (even just over 500, he said) then my offer would most likely have been accepted

How bloody frustrating! On the upshot, they're more than happy to get £5 per month for the next 6 years

Will never understand the logic

ETA just had even more crazy thought....... I'm paying £5 per month, my bank account (same bank, I know it's risky) are paying me £5 per month bonus.....effectively paying their own debt

Send your offer in writing zenshi, that way it gets dealt with by a human, and not a machine, or a bloke reading from a script.

Make sure you include the correct wording so you won't be chased for the remainder of the debt, the template letter on the National Debtline website is the one to use.

Making settlement offers over the phone must always be backed up in writing or you leave yourself open to future action.

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere

Welshie28 wrote: »

I took that advice and it did let me progress to the next page but then said they want to discuss a few things with me first. Scary!

I have to give them a ring tomorrow.

Hi Welshie,

I had a message to call them after I did my review online - it was purely because DFD was 10+ years away so they wanted to check there was no better debt solution for me. They accepted the budget no problem.

Did you manage to call them - what was the outcome?

Hope you manged to get the monthly repayment you wanted

Take care,

BDFSH x

blisteringblue

blisteringblue wrote: »

Been working away this week and come home to 4 messages on the answerphone telling me I must contact them.

Official complain time, they even have a form on their website

He he, Apology letter and I've been taken off all contact lists and the account put on hold so no more contact.

Alas no cheque like Ident sent but I've still told them nothing either.

All part of the game